World News - Historians: Past Eras Were Worse Than Now Think We've Got It Bad? Historians Say Past Eras Were Worse Than the Present

Terrorist attacks, a war in Iraq and natural disasters aren't so bad compared to other tough times in America's past, from the Revolutionary War to the Cold War, history professors say. Asked to compare eight difficult periods of the nation's history, 46 percent of the 354 professors who responded to a nationwide survey agreed the current era was the least trying. The Civil War, 55 percent said, was the toughest. Researchers at the Siena Research Institute of Siena College came up with the survey after hearing students comment they felt today's era was one of the most trying in America's history. "It's an issue of perspective," said Thomas Kelly, a professor emeritus of history and American studies at Siena who helped conduct the survey, which was released Thursday. ... http://abcnews.go.com

The Republican National Committee yesterday released a hard-hitting Web ad that shows the white flag of surrender waving in front of Democrats as they complain about the Iraq war. "Democrats have a plan for Iraq," a line of text reads at the beginning of the 60-second spot. "Retreat and defeat." The ad then shows a white flag waving in front of Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Howard Dean as he tells a San Antonio radio station: "The idea that we're going to win this war is an idea that, unfortunately, it's just plain wrong." DNC spokesman Josh Earnest responded: "It's a shame that President Bush and the Republicans are more interested in attacking Democrats than in attacking the terrorists. Our troops deserve better." The ad is the latest and most pointed in a series of coordinated attacks by President Bush and his supporters to counter Democratic complaints about the Iraq war. ...http://www.washtimes.com/national/20051209-110814-2328r.htm

The CIA operated two secret "black sites" for terrorism suspects in Poland, the main European location for the clandestine operation, according to a Polish press report yesterday.The military expert with Human Rights Watch, which said last month that US intelligence had been using facilities in Poland and Romania to incarcerate and interrogate senior al-Qaida suspects, told the Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper that about a quarter of 100 prisoners had been held secretly at two former Soviet air bases in Poland. The detainees were said to have been airlifted out of Poland ahead of this week's visit to Europe by Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, whose talks in Brussels, Berlin, and Romania have been dominated by the row over alleged CIA torture compounds in eastern Europe....http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1664084,00.html

Federal prosecutors have dropped charges against Deborah Davis, the 53-year-old Arvada woman who refused to show her identification to federal police officers on an RTD bus traveling through the Federal Center in Lakewood. Davis' supporters, at first jubilant to learn Wednesday morning that she will not be prosecuted, were dismayed to learn hours later that officers of the Federal Protective Service still will ask passengers on the public bus to show their identification. The policy applies to all passengers, including those, as in Davis' case, who are traveling through the Federal Center and not getting off the bus there. Federal officials said the Davis case was closed because of a technicality involving a problem with a sign at the Federal Center at the time Davis was ticketed. The sign was supposed to inform people that their IDs would be checked. "The policy hasn't changed," said Jamie Zuieback, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, of which ...http://rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_4298626,00.html

Two British lawmakers have accused the government of a cover-up for refusing to admit that Britain helped launch Israel's nuclear program in 1959 by secretly selling the Jewish state a batch of heavy water a key ingredient in producing weapons-grade materials. The British Broadcasting Corp. first reported the allegations contained in previously classified documents in August, but Foreign Office Minister Kim Howells swiftly denied the claims to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Howells' account "simply flies in the face of the known facts, now that we have access to previously classified documents," Menzies Campbell, a lawmaker and foreign affairs spokesman from the small centrist Liberal Democrat party, told the BBC's Newsnight program late Friday....http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1391634

The airline passenger shot to death by federal marshals who said he made a bomb threat was agitated even before boarding and later appeared to be desperate to get off the plane, some fellow travelers said. One passenger said he "absolutely never heard the word 'bomb' at all" during the uproar as the Orlando-bound flight prepared to leave Miami on Wednesday. Federal officials say Rigoberto Alpizar made the threat in the jetway, after running up the plane's aisle from his seat at the back of the jetliner. They opened fire because the 44-year-old Home Depot employee ignored their orders to stop, reached into his backpack and said he had a bomb, according to authorities. Alpizar's brother, speaking from Costa Rica, said he would never believe the shooting was necessary....http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1391359&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312